The Harlot’s House

    • We caught the tread of dancing feet,
    • We loitered down the moonlit street,
    • And stopped beneath the Harlot’s House.
    • Inside, above the din and fray,
    • We heard the loud musicians play
    • The Treues Liebes Herz of Strauss.
    • Like strange mechanical grotesques,
    • Making fantastic arabesques,
    • The shadows raced across the blind.
    • We watched the ghostly dancers spin,
    • To sound of horn and violin,
    • Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.
    • Like wire-pulled Automatons,
    • Slim silhouetted skeletons
    • Went sidling through the slow quadrille,
    • Then took each other by the hand,
    • And danced a stately saraband;
    • Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.
    • Sometimes a clock-work puppet pressed
    • A phantom lover to her breast,
    • Sometimes they seemed to try and sing.
    • Sometimes a horrible Marionette
    • Came out and smoked its cigarette
    • Upon the steps like a live thing.
    • Then turning to my love I said,
    • “The dead are dancing with the dead,
    • The dust is whirling with the dust.”
    • But she, she heard the violin,
    • And left my side and entered in:
    • Love passed into the House of Lust.
    • Then suddenly the tune went false,
    • The dancers wearied of the waltz,
    • The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl,
    • And down the long and silent street,
    • The dawn with silver-sandalled feet,
    • Crept like a frightened girl.